a species of Polygonum (see that article Encycl.), was first introduced into Europe about the end of the 15th or the beginning of the 16th century. According to some botanists, who lived at that period, its native country is the northern parts of Asia, whence it was brought to Germany and France, where, about the year 1587, it was the common food of the poor.

A new species of this grain, or, to speak perhaps more properly, a variety of this species, has been for some time known under the name of Siberian buckwheat, which appears to have considerable advantages over the former. It was sent from Tartary to St Petersburgh by the German botanists, who travelled through that country in the beginning of the present century; and it has thence been dispersed over all Europe. Linnaeus received the first seeds of it in 1737 from Garber the botanist, and described the plant in his Flora Cliffortiana. After this it was mentioned by Ammann in 1739; but it must have been earlier known in Germany; for in 1733 it was growing in the garden of Dr Ehrhart at Memmingen. In Siberia this plant flows itself for four or five years by the grains that drop; but at the end of that period the land becomes too full of tares that it is choked, and must be sown afresh. Even in the economical gardens of Germany, it is propagated in the same manner; and in that country it is in some places found growing wild, though it is nowhere cultivated in the neighbourhood. It is not, however, indigenous, otherwise Ehrhart might have raised it from German seed, which it seems he could not find in 1733. See much curious information concerning this plant in Professor Beckmann's History of Inventions and Discoveries.